Presently, data recording systems exist that can record graphic, text and image data onto identification documents, such as driver's licenses, military identification cards, and school identification cards. For example, systems exist that manufacture driver's licenses which include a printed image of the driver, text data, a bar code, a fingerprint image, and a magnetic stripe. These improved identification cards can carry more information and are more difficult to forge than conventional identification cards which typically only include a photographic image, a standard graphic image and a block of text data.
Although these improved identification cards have many advantages over the conventional identification cards, the manufacture of these improved identification cards has proven to be more complex than the manufacture of traditional identification cards. In particular, the implementation of an inspection and quality control system for regulating the quality of each recorded data format is more time consuming and expensive than the inspection of the traditional identification card.
The systems presently employed for inspecting these improved identification cards are relatively unsophisticated. Typically, the inspection is manually performed with operators that inspect each card, or select ones of the cards, to detect smudges, missing pictures and other gross errors that are readily detectable by manual inspection. These unsophisticated prior art systems are relatively cumbersome, ineffective and expensive to operate. Moreover, the manual inspection operation only detects printing or recording errors, and fails to detect typographical errors and other misprints. Therefore, a barcode that is printed without smudges will pass inspection even if the recorded data is incorrect or meaningless.
Additionally, the acuity of these manual inspection systems is fairly poor, for example, these manual inspection systems are ill equipped to detect subtle changes in the recording process, such as a lightening of the recorded text, or a slight tilt of a printed image. Therefore, these manual inspection systems are unable to detect conditions that indicate future failures in the system, such as running out of ink or loose printing heads. Similarly, manual inspection is poorly suited for detecting errors, like blurring or smudges, in complex images, such as two-dimensional barcodes or finger print images.
Also troublesome is the inability to detect non-uniformity between identification cards manufactured at different manufacturing stations. Because the uniformity of the recorded data is effected by the age and type of printer that records the image onto the card, there can be a wide range of darkness levels for the images recorded by different manufacturing stations. Although these different darkness levels can be quite pronounced when cards are compared side-by-side, subtle differences are difficult for a human inspector to detect. This lack of uniformity makes it more difficult to detect forgeries and, therefore, reduces the security provided by the identification card.
A further problem with the present systems for inspecting identification cards arises with the incorporation of security features such as holographic overlays. These holographic overlays are highly reflective of light and, therefore, can obscure the text, image or graphic data beneath the overlay and make manual inspection difficult.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an improved unitary system for manufacturing and inspecting identification cards having data recorded in different formats.
Another object of the invention is to provide systems and methods for recording and inspecting data records each having different data recorded thereon.
A further object is to provide a system for recording data that reduces the labor costs associated with quality control and inspection.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a system for recording data that increases the uniformity of printed data between identification cards.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide systems and methods that can inspect the data recorded onto an identification card having a holographic overlay.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide systems and methods for manufacturing identification cards that detect changes in the recording process and operation of the system.
These and other objects of the present invention will be made apparent by the following description of the invention.